Over the last few months, I've been helping out some former clients with upgrading their servers for something to do. A lot of these machines do need to be replaced (a lot are P4's with XP Pro and if they are lucky, 2 GB of ram). Anyways, thought we would take advantage of the situation and get these clients back into modern times (the software that they have been running since the early turn of the century is still an old C-based 32 bit app). All the clients are gung ho to be upgrading their server and I sent them out what the modern version of the software requires. Nothing to demanding:

Dedicated Server (no other use with other software such as Exchange, SQL, etc)● 64 bit Windows Server Operating (2008R2 or better) system with sufficient licenses for number of users including any remote users (Small Business Server editions are not suitable)● minimum 2.5 GHz quad core processor (intel i5 or better).● minimum 16 GB of memory (more is better)● minimum 500 GB hard drive space free (SSD preferred)● keyboard and mouse, network card● minimum 17” SVGA (1024x768 resolution) color monitor● nvidia GTX 4xx/5xx/6xx/7xx series if realtime financial analysis is desired.● Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) with shutdown software● server must be behind a router / firewall● multiple remote users require an operating system supporting them, such as Server2008 or Server 2012● additional memory is required if using Microsoft Terminal Services for remote users● a system with many remote users should have a separate server for remote access

Communications Equipment• High Speed Internet Access to the server and at least one workstation• Microsoft Terminal Services installed on the server with connection detailsfor support use (not logmein, teamviewer, gotomeeting, etc). VPN is fine.

Nothing too demanding but yet when they forward the information to their "IT guys" I'm seeing all kinds of crap. Most are ok reading the specs and configuring it as such but there are some "MS certified" idiots out there.

Today for example, getting ready to do a migration and upgrade of their software to the new server, call the tech, "Yup everything is ready to go!" So I ask for the rdp information and get "Umm, RDP to the old server and then vnc to the new one".

Right there I should have stopped and said "Get the RDP setup first and then we will proceed" but to get them back and running I was going to allow going this route just for the migration although it would be a PITA.

OK so I log into this new "server", slow as molasses, wait a minute, this is Win 7 Pro. Again I should have stopped right there but because this isn't a large network, just a peer to peer, in a pinch, could suffice. I continue on.....

Go to download the updated software and some dependencies, fire up IE, ....... waiting..... waiting..... waiting.......... IE crash on a fresh install. Try again, same thing.

OK, "WTF" I'm thinking to myself and start checking into the system specs.

This "tech" who is supposed to have tons of certifications provided them with:

A4-3400, 8 GB of DDR-1333, 250 Gig 5400 RPM 2.5 drive

Worst of all he was virtualizing (more like emulating with Fedora and QEMU) the Win 7 install on this machine and allotted more memory then the machine actually had.

It was at that time that I stopped, verified the specs with the "tech" and then called the owner to tell him that I will not be migrating it to this machine and to talk to him about his "tech".

Turns out this "tech" of theirs was not only incompetent but also a crook as he was going to charge them 3k for that machine.

This "tech" was an overly bad example but as I do more and more of these migrations for people I'm finding out there are a ton of techs out there with certifications that are absolute idiots. It seems like many of them have the "virtualization" bug but even if they have the hardware to do it, many of them have zero clue how to configure it or set it up properly.

How do these guys get their "certs"? Has certification become that much of a joke that these clowns are carrying credentials?

I know PC guys like to polk fun at Mac users being "simple" but honestly I don't see how they can giving the sad sad sad state of a lot of PC users and "techs".

There are plenty of mills out there where you go pay your money, sit in a class for a couple days, then "take a test" and get your cert. I know it's supposed to be harder than that but this is the reality. I've run into a couple of certified devs who couldn't program their way out of a wet paper bag. I can understand how this happens...

My former employer sent me off to get .NET developer certs. The classes they signed me up for were instructor guided, with pre-written examples only requiring slight modification using code taken right out of the lab books. "Tests" were all open book and basically duplicated examples we had been given to work in class. You'd have to be a complete and utter idiot to not complete the class.

Certifications are easy to get if you have the time and money to do it, all the right responses can be found via online study guides and away you go.

True, but I think a lot of it also comes down to that the examinations are basically multiple choice for most and the actual exam questions are usually reworded versions of items taken right out of the texts. They don't require people to think but to just memorize.

I'm very proud to say that the only "certs" I have are an undergraduate degree in ECE and an M.S. in Information Networking. I don't claim to be the world's greatest admin, but funnily enough, I tend to be able to setup systems that don't consume all my time doing admin work so I can focus on getting real work done

It's a shame you had to setup your client with a non-headless Windows server though. I know you are a big Linux guy, so I'm guessing it's because of that legacy C application that is likely locked into win32 somehow.

Last edited by chuckula on Thu Jan 23, 2014 9:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Speaking from experience, Microsoft, Novell Netware, and Adtran Certifications were a joke. Take a class, pass a test. Lather, rinse, repeat. That's how i got my MSCE+I, MCT, and CNE 4.x and 5.x before I was twenty.

Cisco noticed the same thing complaints about their CCNA program occuring, and recently changed their CCNA exam around. It now includes materials that used to be found in several CCNP certification courses. So, at the end of the day, if you pass the new rev of the CCNA Exam like I did, you damn well better know you're ****. And that's how it SHOULD be, in ,my opinion.

Workin on my CCNA Data Center, CCNA Wireless, and CCNP R&S before I move on to VMWares VCA and VCP5 Data Center and Cloud certs.

chuckula wrote:It's a shame you had to setup your client with a non-headless Windows server though. I know you are a big Linux guy, so I'm guessing it's because of that legacy C application that is likely locked into win32 somehow.

Na, it could be installed on OS X or Linux as well since the server component is now Java based. The real issue is that a lot of these companies are not large enough to have their own IT dept and they have slim pickings of even qualified Windows support and for them to find someone that can support their linux/OS X server becomes an even much harder task.

The hardware for that server isn't that much faster then what is replacing. IMO, I would forgo getting a GPGPU unless the software the client uses takes advantage of it.

Umm the server that was to be replaced was an old XP single core P4 with 1.5 Gigs of RAM. As far as the GPGPU goes, it does drastically speed up performance (and scales extremely well) on realtime analysis but it is usually the larger clients (or the ones with impatient accountants and CFO's) that wish to have that capability. The minimum specs are geared towards the small to medium clients which I am targeting to get these legacy servers off the grid. With the larger clients I usually am consulting them on the setup and customize the specs to their needs. Just a few months back for one of the larger clients their hardware setup wound up costing over a quarter million complete with tesla clusters.

Where I work switched their O&M contractor about a year ago. The new guys are awful. And they are from a fortune 500 firm. They cannot troubleshoot to save their lives. They cannot even be troubled to build a VM (from a template) in 10 business days (yes, two weeks). It is just really hard to find good people these days. My sister-in-law is an IT recruiter/salesperson (Headhunter)....i.e. she is evil. She cannot understand why the unemployment rate is high (or relatively high) and yet it is hard to fill positions. It's easy.....there are waaaaaaay too many idiots out there. Once upon a time I worried about ends of contracts and finding new employment. I don't anymore. Most of these guys out there make me look like a genius.....

To give a more concrete example there is a piece of COTS software we use for configuration compliance (it can do more but that is what we use it for). It needed to be upgraded. The guys on this new contract were the ones that supported and all week before the upgrade asking me questions. I would answer (by either googling or going to the vendor website) and sending them links to the info. Friday comes, time for upgrade, and they have problems. They have to call the vendor and end up working until midnight. And then they complain (and their boss gets upset) that they had to work late. Hi, welcome to IT.....

In short, welcome to the club. Look at the bright side, like I do. Those idiots are your job security.

The hardware for that server isn't that much faster then what is replacing. IMO, I would forgo getting a GPGPU unless the software the client uses takes advantage of it.

Umm the server that was to be replaced was an old XP single core P4 with 1.5 Gigs of RAM. As far as the GPGPU goes, it does drastically speed up performance (and scales extremely well) on realtime analysis but it is usually the larger clients (or the ones with impatient accountants and CFO's) that wish to have that capability. The minimum specs are geared towards the small to medium clients which I am targeting to get these legacy servers off the grid. With the larger clients I usually am consulting them on the setup and customize the specs to their needs. Just a few months back for one of the larger clients their hardware setup wound up costing over a quarter million complete with tesla clusters.

I was actually referring to the IT consultant's recommendation. An A4-3400 isn't exactly a server-tier chip and you get something much better for a little bit more. IIRC, A4-3400 doesn't even support ECC which might be helpful here and worth the premium.

GPGPUs only makes sense if applications take advantage of it, otherwise it is unneeded expenditure. Nvidia for CUDA-stuff while AMD is the better deal for OpenCL until you go into ultra-high end where Nvidia is the best at a price. The rest of the recommendation list is pretty solid though.

Krogoth wrote:GPGPUs only makes sense if applications take advantage of it, otherwise it is unneeded expenditure. Nvidia for CUDA-stuff while AMD is the better deal for OpenCL until you go into ultra-high end where Nvidia is the best at a price. The rest of the recommendation list is pretty solid though.

Considering I developed the GPGPU code, I'm pretty damn sure what GPUs to recommend.

mattshwink wrote:My sister-in-law is an IT recruiter/salesperson (Headhunter)....i.e. she is evil. She cannot understand why the unemployment rate is high (or relatively high) and yet it is hard to fill positions. It's easy.....there are waaaaaaay too many idiots out there.

True but a lot of companies that say they're hiring really aren't, at least not outside the old-boy network. I ran into this when I was unemployed after graduating in 2008.

"Why are there so many idiots out there with years of experience? What have they been doing?"

Which simply just finally leads to

"Why are there so many idiots?"

Blaming the certs is misdirected.

Na, it's not misdirected, it just emphasizes how customers (and even employers) get duped by the credential "WOW" and how worthless they are when an idiot and a genius can carry the same credentials.

Personally, I have always preferred hiring the ones with the practical experience (but not necessarily "professional" experience) instead of the "credentials.". Unfortunately, a lot of the companies hiring these people don't know any better on the position they are hiring for. I remember job ads asking for "5 years minimum experience in Java development" when Java wasn't even out for that long.

NovusBogus wrote:True but a lot of companies that say they're hiring really aren't, at least not outside the old-boy network. I ran into this when I was unemployed after graduating in 2008.

I don't run into this too much, but where I am I do run into situations where they are hiring for a contract they have not won yet (in other words, there are usually 2-4 firms looking to fill the same position, and only one of them really will win it).

You could easily change the phrase "with certs" in your thread title to "with a graduate degree," "in management," or "making 3x as much money as I do" and it would still be a valid question. (Well, at least it would be if you also changed "what" to "why"... but I digress.) Paper credentials, a person's position on the org chart, and compensation frequently have little correlation with knowledge or ability.

The years just pass like trains. I wave, but they don't slow down.-- Steven Wilson

just brew it! wrote:Paper credentials, a person's position on the org chart, and compensation frequently have little correlation with knowledge or ability.

More often than not, I find the correlation to be inverse. In the day job I never expect to get a straight answer out of the e-suite (one institution excepted), instead, I go fishing down in the trenches and learn just exactly what's going on. Find someone who hasn't been coached on how to talk with regulators and it's a gold mine.

just brew it! wrote:Paper credentials, a person's position on the org chart, and compensation frequently have little correlation with knowledge or ability.

More often than not, I find the correlation to be inverse. In the day job I never expect to get a straight answer out of the e-suite (one institution excepted), instead, I go fishing down in the trenches and learn just exactly what's going on. Find someone who hasn't been coached on how to talk with regulators and it's a gold mine.

Many of the higher-ups are where they are precisely *because* they are good at spewing BS. If you aspire to being a corporate executive (or a politician for that matter), being able to regurgitate content-free nonsense on demand while appearing to have more of a clue than everyone else is probably the most valuable job skill you can have!

The years just pass like trains. I wave, but they don't slow down.-- Steven Wilson

just brew it! wrote:Many of the higher-ups are where they are precisely *because* they are good at spewing BS. If you aspire to being a corporate executive (or a politician for that matter), being able to regurgitate content-free nonsense on demand while appearing to have more of a clue than everyone else is probably the most valuable job skill you can have!

Which is why I will be forever condemned to toil in the areas where the work really gets done, as I simply don't have time for that nonsense. Going on 18 years in this job and if it's given me anything, it's a finely-tuned BS detector. I think that's why I found the Darkmage Chronicles so funny.

We were bad, back in the day. My buddy ran an ISP in the 90s and we were self taught hackerish types. We used to get drunk on Saturdays and bring down the local competition. They were a pure MSCE operation and were just completely clueless. We eventually stopped doing it out of pity.

Our new owners' IT department are a bunch of MSCE droids too. At least they've consented to allow us (the software department) to have our own subnet where we can put our Linux systems to get some real work done. Can't allow those scary Linux systems to mingle with their precious Windows 7 systems!

We still have to go through their web filter/proxy though, which is a royal PITA. At least the Debian and Ubuntu repositories are unblocked; initially they made noises about making us switch all of the Linux systems to RHEL, which would've been problematic given that one of our *products* runs Debian.

The years just pass like trains. I wave, but they don't slow down.-- Steven Wilson

I see this in my college IT department. 3 of their servers are still XP, with no more than 2gb, on a single core. One of them powers their WIFI setup. And all these techs with all their certs cannot figure out why the WIFI side to the outside world is so damned slow. I walked in and explained that the machine needed to be replace with something a smidge newer. the first words out of their mouths were "We have the certs and degrees, we know what we are doing with it." They looked DOWN on everyone who knew their ****, but didn't have, or are in the process of getting certs.

Most of these people are just filled shirts, run through the cert mills much like popcorn in a microwave. pop the cert, out you go. suddenly they are making upwards of the high 6 digits, yet they don't know a damned thing.....

Yet the guys with the certs, skill, and the knowledge, are sitting in line in unemployment...

k2x4b524p wrote:I see this in my college IT department. 3 of their servers are still XP, with no more than 2gb, on a single core. One of them powers their WIFI setup. And all these techs with all their certs cannot figure out why the WIFI side to the outside world is so damned slow. I walked in and explained that the machine needed to be replace with something a smidge newer. the first words out of their mouths were "We have the certs and degrees, we know what we are doing with it." They looked DOWN on everyone who knew their ****, but didn't have, or are in the process of getting certs.

Most of these people are just filled shirts, run through the cert mills much like popcorn in a microwave. pop the cert, out you go. suddenly they are making upwards of the high 6 digits, yet they don't know a damned thing.....

Yet the guys with the certs, skill, and the knowledge, are sitting in line in unemployment...

Seriously? They're using a Win XP server to control their WiFi setup?! LOL!!! That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, and I was once told by a tech that the reason they had an 80ft LMR-400 run was because "the packets were coming out too fast".

Lemme guess, they're a bunch of MCP/MCSEs who've never taken a cert outside of a Microsoft course. Have they never heard of WLAN controllers? It's not that damn hard! To give you an example (and this might be me outing myself), at a WISP I worked for, we had an OC12 coming into my office thru an AT&T 7200VXR router. From there, it split into 2 wireless DS3 backhaul radios to remote sites, while we also had 16 bonded T1s coming in from other sites. We used C3550 multilayer switches, several Bluesocket gateway controllers, a Packet Shaper (forget the the brand), a PIX firewall, a redundant Rodopi User login/billing server, and redundant UPS battery backups. Never had a single issue with speed, or maintenance.

k2x4b524p wrote:I see this in my college IT department. 3 of their servers are still XP, with no more than 2gb, on a single core. One of them powers their WIFI setup. And all these techs with all their certs cannot figure out why the WIFI side to the outside world is so damned slow. I walked in and explained that the machine needed to be replace with something a smidge newer. the first words out of their mouths were "We have the certs and degrees, we know what we are doing with it." They looked DOWN on everyone who knew their ****, but didn't have, or are in the process of getting certs.

Most of these people are just filled shirts, run through the cert mills much like popcorn in a microwave. pop the cert, out you go. suddenly they are making upwards of the high 6 digits, yet they don't know a damned thing.....

Yet the guys with the certs, skill, and the knowledge, are sitting in line in unemployment...

Oh, and another issue I have with College IT departments is that the tend to be unable to diagnose their way out of a wet paper bag. I had a user once that went to them with a laptop problem. After four attempts at "diagnosing it", they gave up and told him to RMA it to the vendor. He brings it to me (being the kind soul I was, before becoming jaded) and I took a peek at it. It was unable to pick up a WiFi signal, even 3ft from a radio. I look at the front of the laptop, and sure enough, the button to enable/disable WiFi WAS RIGHT THERE. Every time he put it in his lap, his belly would press the button, turning WiFi off. It took me all of 5 seconds to diagnose and fix the problem, while the campus IT department couldn't do it with a month of time. LOL!

And back to the topic at hand about certs, at one point I taught Microsoft and Novell certification courses, and they teach you *just* enough to pass the exam. No more, no less.

I still put my MCSE+I, MCT, and CNE 4x/5X on my resume, since HR recruiters look for those acronyms, even though I'll never user Netware ever again in my life. Netware, NDS, NCP, and IPX/SPX are gone, dead, never to be resurrected. But for some stupid reason, HR loves to see those acronyms. Go figure.

"Seriously? They're using a Win XP server to control their WiFi setup?! LOL!!! That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, and I was once told by a tech that" "the reason they had an 80ft LMR-400 run was because "the packets were coming out too fast"."

That is truly astounding, how can you have packets coming out too fast...

"Lemme guess, they're a bunch of MCP/MCSEs who've never taken a cert outside of a Microsoft course. Have they never heard of WLAN controllers? It's" "not that damn hard! To give you an example (and this might be me outing myself), at a WISP I worked for, we had an OC12 coming into my office thru" "an AT&T 7200VXR router. From there, it split into 2 wireless DS3 backhaul radios to remote sites, while we also had 16 bonded T1s coming in from other "sites. We used C3550 multilayer switches, several Bluesocket gateway controllers, a Packet Shaper (forget the the brand), a PIX firewall, a redundant" "Rodopi User login/billing server, and redundant UPS battery backups. Never had a single issue with speed, or maintenance."

Most of the IT staff at my college are just filled shirts.....

"Windows XP... *snert*" Would rather us it than Vista

I agree with the statement about them not being able to diagnose their way out of a wet paper bag. I encountered this phenomenon a couple of terms ago. A netbook "Win XP" kept throwing hal.dll errors and was in a state of perpetual reboot, and BSOD. Nobody thought to try and read the BSOD while it flashes a couple of times. I did, had the netbook back the next day, still working to this day, faster too. I had to shoehorn 7's HAL into it, but it works.

As for certs, i am currently going for everything i can get through my BA program with WGU. Online yes, but they offer 16+ certs in their program. Which is more than i can say for my college's IT department.. An update on that, i just found out that they are going to have to take down 2 of the XP servers, and 1 of their 2k8R2 servers. XP for being pirated, and 2k8R2 for not having enough CALS.. Who would have thought MS actually cared enough to send some nasty emails...

k2x4b524p wrote:"Seriously? They're using a Win XP server to control their WiFi setup?! LOL!!! That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, and I was once told by a tech that" "the reason they had an 80ft LMR-400 run was because "the packets were coming out too fast"."

That is truly astounding, how can you have packets coming out too fast...

No joke, the tech tried to tell me that with a straight face, even though I knew damn well that LMR-400 runs from radio to antenna should be 10ft or less, and there's no such thing as "packets coming out too fast". That was almost as funny as watching him tell a female customer that the reason she couldn't get signal on her laptop was because "we used vertically integrated waves, and her WiFi was horizontally integrated". I fired his ass on the spot for that, apologized profusely to the customer for his asshattery, and proceeded to re-engineer the entire damn site so it would work properly.

Most of the IT staff at my college are just filled shirts.....

That's what I've noticed as well. I've learned more from Field techs, and guys working in Colos and COs than I ever have from an IT dept dude.

"Windows XP... *snert*" Would rather us it than Vista

Windows shouldn't even enter into the equation, unless it's as a Radius authentication server, or it's serving up a login page. There are dedicated WLAN controllers for just such a purpose. There is ZERO need to have any flavor of Windows control your WiFi network, unless you're just so married to Windows that you can't do anything without it. Out of all the equipment we had at the WISP I worked at (which serviced 45K customers across several states) only TWO were windows servers. One was a Radius server, the other was a billing server. Everything else came from other vendors.

I agree with the statement about them not being able to diagnose their way out of a wet paper bag. I encountered this phenomenon a couple of terms ago. A netbook "Win XP" kept throwing hal.dll errors and was in a state of perpetual reboot, and BSOD. Nobody thought to try and read the BSOD while it flashes a couple of times. I did, had the netbook back the next day, still working to this day, faster too. I had to shoehorn 7's HAL into it, but it works.

As for certs, i am currently going for everything i can get through my BA program with WGU. Online yes, but they offer 16+ certs in their program. Which is more than i can say for my college's IT department.. An update on that, i just found out that they are going to have to take down 2 of the XP servers, and 1 of their 2k8R2 servers. XP for being pirated, and 2k8R2 for not having enough CALS.. Who would have thought MS actually cared enough to send some nasty emails...

Ooooo! Somebody got disgruntled and reported them to the BSA. I've seen that happen before, but its usually bitter sales executives pulling that stunt! Awesomesauce!